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Sandbox, not themepark.
ArchivedUser
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So I didn't see any official mention of the claim beyond 'Sandbox mechanics' as to what path Ashes will take.
While granted there's an overwhelming amount of mechanics that lean it towards Sandbox, many of the interviews involving Steven he often mentions 'Narrative driven' and that story blocks will be unlocked by node progress.
This makes me think alongside the sandbox elements, we'll have a core themepark style story. Similar to the 'Dynamic Events' system of Guild Wars 2 but on a much longer and larger scale.
I don't hate this concept, as realistically there's only so many combinations of built in story elements they could provide without regular content injection.
My point is, I hope the story isn't too character focused. For example, the pretty much the whole of WoW outside the recent expansions. For the most part the story is 'You're a hero among tons of other heroes to stop massive does!' instead of more recent games that cram you from one linear story path and hold your hand with cutscenes focusing on you being a sole chosen pretending other players don't exist.
Sure, I want feel unique. However I want to feel unique from my own achievement, not because the story tells me so. I want options to build my character and form bonds with random nobody's based on my own choices not some force or major character dragging me by the hand as to where to go.
That being said I don't personally hate Themepark elements, and cut scenes and a core cast of important people is cool and all. That cast just needs to feel a part of the world and specify us as random people when talking rather than the one and only hero, acting as if nobody else is around.
While granted there's an overwhelming amount of mechanics that lean it towards Sandbox, many of the interviews involving Steven he often mentions 'Narrative driven' and that story blocks will be unlocked by node progress.
This makes me think alongside the sandbox elements, we'll have a core themepark style story. Similar to the 'Dynamic Events' system of Guild Wars 2 but on a much longer and larger scale.
I don't hate this concept, as realistically there's only so many combinations of built in story elements they could provide without regular content injection.
My point is, I hope the story isn't too character focused. For example, the pretty much the whole of WoW outside the recent expansions. For the most part the story is 'You're a hero among tons of other heroes to stop massive does!' instead of more recent games that cram you from one linear story path and hold your hand with cutscenes focusing on you being a sole chosen pretending other players don't exist.
Sure, I want feel unique. However I want to feel unique from my own achievement, not because the story tells me so. I want options to build my character and form bonds with random nobody's based on my own choices not some force or major character dragging me by the hand as to where to go.
That being said I don't personally hate Themepark elements, and cut scenes and a core cast of important people is cool and all. That cast just needs to feel a part of the world and specify us as random people when talking rather than the one and only hero, acting as if nobody else is around.
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I totally agree with you, I don't want to be forced to 'have' to complete a quest line or be guided along a certain path before characters are allowed to reveal more story.
Lets all run into the wilderness and discover a story at any time!
I absolutely love GW2 for it's customization, combat and world design... While I enjoyed the Story ( To be fair, mostly just the content after the base game), I hated being portrayed in cinematics as the one and only. Sure, it was cool having character specific interactions but world changing events shouldn't be a single player experience.
I want to know and realize there are other heroes similar to myself attempting to strive forward.
Some games like TERA or FFXIV have a vague 'You're one of the chosen! Congrats!' starter concept, then dive hard into character specific storylines... FFXIV even being so bold as to tell story through other perspectives other than your own during the story. Which broke immersion entirely for me.
They keep saying they want it to be a 'massively multiplayer game, not a massively single player experience' or something along those lines.
I really hope that holds true. A lot of their focus seems to be on player involvement and forcing community interaction between players for various mechanics which is great! I just hope they realize that story and lore, while great, don't have to be forced or dragging you by the hand through it. The Dark Souls community should be a great example of how sublime, yet interesting lore and great environment and world development can drive an awesome deticated community.
In order to begin to solve their massively single-player RPG conundrum, the devs will need to develop strategies for like-minded playstyles to group.
Group tasks for players whose playstyles are:
hardcore challenge/hardcore time
hardcore challenge/casual time
casual challenge/hardcore time
casual challenge/casual time
A casual challenge/casual time player is likely to get kicked from a group that is mostly hardcore challenge/hardcore time or even hardcore challenge/casual time. And when that happens often enough, that casual challenge player will choose to solo rather than look for a group.
Same for the the bartle score playstyles:
Explorer/Socializers and Socializer/Explorers tend to get kicked from groups that are comprised of Killer/Achievers and Achiever/Killers.
Also an Explorer is probably not going to be willing to wait in one spot while a raid forms. And will instead go off and solo.
So the devs will have to find ways to make it easy for ESAKs and SEKAs to find each other and have tasks for that group to complete.
MMORPG devs and players typically focus on the class combos required for a quest and don't think about how well the differing playstyles mesh in a group. As the casuals get berated by the hardcores to conform to their expectations, the casuals choose to solo or duo instead.
There may be a may be a solution for this from the EQNext devs working on AoC if they're adapting Storybricks to the Nodes...which appears to be the case. Storybricks was supposed to track what players are doing nearby and then send players tasks based on what those players do most often...also based on race and class. So, players who play together often or do the same type of stuff would be more likely to be given similar quests or even the same quests.
If the nodes are able to do that, then it will be easier for people to establish longterm groups they enjoy. Even if they are exploring in a group rather killing stuff in a group.
With social progression, this may also happen with a group of Socializers being sent on diplomatic missions rather than kill quests.
BUT...they will open up themparks sideshow in the process.
The side shows, group instances and such, will be there to keep you occupied in lulls of sandbox activity.
So you see...you get the best of both worlds.
Global community content (sanbox)
Local community content (themepark)
The themepark side will simply be basic isolated mutiplayer stuff you get in any modern mmo.
Well, we have to deconstruct what narrative means in association with AoC.
The overall narrative is the sum total of what all the players have been doing.
Within each person's sphere of influence, they are the hero... or the villain. Even if you just baking pastries for those who pass by your shop.
Some individuals will have more impact than other...especially the ruler of the Military Metropolis, for instance.
Then we have the Narrative that is a kind of quest generated by the nodes...in conjunction with tasks and events.
No clue how that will be defined.
Obviously the rewards can't be enough that it would be abused, but I do really like the idea of conflict for control versus a dictatorship if a guild is really set out on it.
Or maybe a low node becoming a regular kill on sight PK PvP zone where a lot of corrupted hang out thanks to the boon of some low level node they regularly make sure stays dead.
I feel like facilitating this kind of player driven content will help fight the node system getting stale after most end node content has been seen, and keep the sandboxiness alive.
Yes, it would appear to have built in storylines, as it was mentioned in one of the latest streams that you will be able to discern from looking at the npcs at a camp what kind of node will appear, should you choose to develop it, but that does not inherently mean that the specific node will actually reach a Metropolis level.
It will be interesting to see how the world unfolds. There is no doubt in that
<blockquote>Q: The main promise of Ashes is a dynamic world that changes in reaction to player activity within the game world, with cities that rise and fall, quests that appear, disappear, and move about, all based on what the players are doing. It’s tempting to characterize Ashes as a sandbox based on that level of player agency alone, but I’m curious – what type of MMO do you consider Ashes of Creation to be?
A: Honestly, I am hesitant to call Ashes a Sandbox. Not because of what Sandbox is supposed to mean, but rather because of how studios have developed “Sandboxes” over the past decade. You see, many developers have used the sandbox concept as an excuse to cut a lot of curated content, in exchange for gimmicky mechanics that allow for player-generated content. In Ashes, we have the opposite approach in development. In order for sandbox mechanics to mean something, there must be curated content to accompany the player’s choices. Which means, as the developers, we must create that Themebox style content but for every possible path the community may take. I like to compare our design philosophy, to that of a “Choose your own adventure” book. Our story is Epic, and you have the ability to be an integral part of that story. Dictating the outcome, in a meaningful way.</blockquote>
Steven is going for themebox.
touche!!
Community focused (sandbox) - Required quest go in a pot available to everyone.
1st to adopt the quest, removes it from the pot.
The success or failure of the quests taken from the pot (or incomplete), determine the fate of the community.
This enables everyone to work in parallel using quests appropriate to their group size and playstyle.
Player/group/guild focused (themepark) - Anyone can pick a duplicate quest to suit their group size and playstyle.
The number of completions add experience...so the story line can evolve.
I expect each node to level based on gathered region experience of the players however until this node evolves the story chains within will be linear. Sure there may be some major community unlocks after enough apples are brought to Aunt May for her to secretly summon her Apple God, but overall these quest aside from localize story quests ( Kinda how Elder Scrolls games are with cities ) feel like they'll be be small individual quest hubs per node.
Or the dreaded dailies. I really, really hope dailies aren't a thing for node progression.
I expect each node to level based on gathered region experience of the players however until this node evolves the story chains within will be linear. Sure there may be some major community unlocks after enough apples are brought to Aunt May for her to secretly summon her Apple God, but overall these quest aside from localize story quests ( Kinda how Elder Scrolls games are with cities ) feel like they’ll be be small individual quest hubs per node.
Or the dreaded dailies. I really, really hope dailies aren’t a thing for node progression.
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Its possible, but I dont really see how that would be much different to anything else really.
Other than a node levelling up and unlocking stuff, its not actually requiring the community to cooperate.
/shrugs
Guess we will just have to wait and see.
I guess its a subtle difference between
indirect community cooperation and
direct community cooperation.
As far as questing goes anyway.
The economy will be pretty tight even if the storyline isnt.